


all the candles, out

by mishcollin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Coda, Human Castiel, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-13
Updated: 2013-11-13
Packaged: 2018-01-01 10:32:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1043765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mishcollin/pseuds/mishcollin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas is still human, and Dean is still gone. (9.06 coda)</p>
            </blockquote>





	all the candles, out

Cas takes long showers. Sometimes he showers at Nora's house, because she seems to take issue with washing his hair in Gas-n'-Sip's sink; it's a health code violation anyway, she tells him. He still sleeps at the gas station, no matter how many times Nora protests and invites him to stay with her and Tanya. Each time he gently declines, because he learned not so long ago not to make homes within people.

This life, he can't afford attachments.

Each time he showers he takes inventory of his body, taps his fingers along the bowed ladder of his ribs, counts the fissures in the dry skin on his hands, the painful scabs on his knuckles, scraped from box-lifting with Bill. He sometimes closes his hands over his ears and listens to the shower water echo in his skull like a drum until it drones out all other sound; it's easier to think, somehow.

And after Dean leaves, Cas sorts his life into rituals. Trudges the mile's walk to Nora's house for a morning shower at 7:30, accepts a ride from her to drop Tanya at the nursery and then to work. Works from open to close, ticks off the boxes on his inventory sheet, mops the floors, stocks the shelves, wipes the counter free of greasy fingerprints. Ignores Nora's soft pitying look and her quiet, "See you tomorrow, Steve," before she locks up the store. She's long stopped inviting him home with her.

Cas doesn't mind sleeping in a sleeping bag, not really. Sometimes it gets drafty in the storage room; sometimes stiflingly hot, but it's much better than sleeping outside.

Each night, he pulls out his phone and stares at the blank screen. Watches the minutes tick by, numbers the thuds of his heart and thinks,  _There are only so many beats left._

He tries texting Dean. Each night before he drifts off, he punches into the small keyboard, "I miss you," and rubs his thumb over the send button, sometimes daringly applying a soft pressure. Sometimes he stares at the screen so long that his hands start shaking and he gets this strange feeling in his throat, like there's a wad of cotton lodged there. Then he closes the phone and goes to sleep, and wonders if a hundred unsent "I miss you's" carry the same weight as one delivered.

One night, after a long and draining day and in a jolt of courage, he presses the send button and holds his breath, stares at his screen hungrily until his eyes are too heavy and dry to stay open. The screen remains blank and he didn't expect a reply anyway, not from Dean. 

When he wakes in the morning, his cheek is pressed painfully into the edge of his phone, and he scrambles to open it, his heart giving a painful jerk when he sees Dean's reply. His eyes skim the two words over and over until they pulse in time with his heartbeat.

_You too._

\--

Cas and Dean text sporadically after that, but it's strictly business. Dean updates him on Sam's recovery, on Crowley, on Bartholomew and on fallen angels he and Sam have tracked. Cas provides whatever information he can and knows, somehow, that it would be untoward to text Dean something similar to what he had that first night. Many times, Dean doesn't reply, and Cas pretends very willfully that it means nothing to him either way.

It's been a few weeks since that first text when Nora, after greeting him at his usual 7:30 arrival, informs him of good news.

"I've found an apartment for you," she says, a smile breaking across her face. "Given all the hours you've put into the shop, it's perfectly within your price range. Bill and I have already called in some preemptive movers, and they're saying we could have you moved in by the end of the week."

Cas is quite thoroughly lost for words. "What? You've--I mean, I never would have expected you to--you didn't have to…"

"Steve." Nora places a gentle hand on Cas' shoulder and looks at him, warmly. "It was no problem, really. I couldn't sleep at night knowing you're staying in a sack on a cement floor." Her eyes are soft and earnest. "You  _deserve_  this, Steve. God knows, you've earned it."

"I don't know how--" Cas' throat closes, effectively blocking whatever coherent words he'd been preparing. "Nora,  _thank_ you."

Chastely, she presses a kiss to his cheek. "Steve. It was the least I could do. I mean, really. Now are you coming in for breakfast or what?"

\--

That night Cas texts Dean,  _I got an apartment._ He doesn't expect a reply, and he doesn't receive one.

\--

The rest of that week is a blur of working long hours, arranging contracts and leases with Nora, and helping the movers drag the previous owners' furniture out into large trucks. Cas doesn't have any furniture--or any belongings, really--but Nora and Bill pool their resources and come up with a large mattress, an old dusty couch that Bill's been keeping in his basement, and a creaky kitchen table from the secondhand store down the street.

Nora and Bill are amazingly tireless in helping Cas get situated, and they wave off Cas' thanks with eye-rolls and affectionate hand gestures. On the Friday night of that week, once everything is finally finished, they host a surprise house-warming party for him; Nora gives him a stack of books that Cas had admitted to eyeing up in her study, complete with a small refurbished shelf to place them in.

"And they're alphabetized," Nora says with a wink, patting the red bow on top of the shelf in a self-satisfactory kind of way. "I figured that'd be how you wanted it."

"I actually prefer them sorted chronologically and by genre," Cas replies solemnly, which earns him a laugh and a playful shove.

Bill's contribution is a bottle of white wine and a toolbox of all of the things Cas could need to make repairs on the apartment.

"Bill, thank you," Cas says sincerely, setting the toolbox on the counter and choosing to ignore the way Bill flushes with pleasure in reply to his words.

"Yeah, well. I figured you could, you know. Use a headstart with the fixin' up stuff. If you ever need me to come around and er, help with anything. You just give me a holler and I'll swing by."

Cas smiles at him, and Bill ducks his head and hides his grin into his mustache.

Nora stays for a glass of wine and then pushes off with an apologetic, "I've got to get Tanya from the babysitter's, and I've taken the pledge and all that." She kisses Cas on the cheek again and then heads off, leaving Cas and Bill effectively alone.

They chat for a while over another glass of wine about mundane things, something Cas knows is called "small talk" and with good reason, he thinks. They talk about the progress of the store, stories of unruly or unusual customers, and when Bill starts to pry into Cas' past life, Cas feigns tiredness and avoids his questions, which certainly can't be a subtle tactic but Bill takes the hint well enough.

"I'm sorry to kick you out," Cas says moments later as he walks Bill to the front door. "I've just had a long week and I'm…truly exhausted." Exhaustion, it's a weighty thing in his bones, a grinding and tireless push to move forward, but Cas thinks he's happy. Maybe for the first time in a long time.

Bill grins at him. "Aww, the wine making you sleepy?"

"A little," Cas admits with a laugh. "I'm sorry that I'm a terrible host."

"Naw, Steve, you…" Bill suddenly moves closer in a way that makes Cas' heart skip a beat; not, he thinks, out of excitement, but rather a sudden desire for escape. "You're really good."

Cas supposes he can't be surprised when Bill leans in and kisses him squarely on the mouth and Cas goes very still, noting quickly the differences between kissing April and Nora and kissing Bill. There's a stronger smell, a spice of cigar smoke and the tang of leather, and Bill's mustache tickles at his upper lip. Cas thinks in those five long seconds, for some unbidden reason, of Dean.

Bill pulls back and gazes at Cas anxiously, searchingly. "Was that…"

"N-no," Cas recovers himself, "you're fine, really--"

Bill frowns and goes red, taking another step back. "Naw, that was out of line. Jesus, Steve, I'm real sorry, I didn't mean to overstep any boundaries--"

"No!" Cas protests quickly, his heart still racing, "I just--"

"I assumed, you know, that you were…" Bill trails off and scratches the back of his head uncomfortably. "I dunno why I jumped to conclusions."

"Really, it's okay, Bill." Cas is quite certain he knows what Bill is alluding to, but human sexuality is a complex, delicate thing and Cas isn't quite sure how to approach it. Not yet, at least.

Bill quirks his eyebrows in a revelatory way and he says, as if in realization, "There's someone else, isn't there?"

The first thing that Cas thinks is to say  _no,_ of course not, who else would there be? But instead his mouth betrays him, putting into effect words he's seen used to evade sticky situations in the sitcoms they air at the gas station sometimes. "It's...complicated."

Bill nods, quickly. "Yeah, I get that." And he stumbles out the door, his face blotchy with crimson. "Yeah. Um, just. I'm real sorry, I didn't mean to--just give me a call when you wanna talk or something, yeah?"

"Bill," Cas protests, but his friend has already ducked out into the night, his steps heavy and echoing in the stairwell and leaving Cas despairingly alone.

Cas shuts the door and leans his back against its frame, breathing in slow and mentally castigating himself. What would be wrong with pursuing a relationship with Bill, a very nice man, a good friend who's interested in him? 

Nothing, Cas thinks dully when he finally settles down for bed. Nothing would be wrong with that at all.

\--

Cas is awoken the next morning not by an alarm clock, but a knocking at the front door, and his first panicked thought is that he's overslept, followed by the strangely terrifying possibility that it could be Bill at the door, wanting to talk. Cas isn't ready for that, not ready to accept or reject Bill's offering; sleeping on it hadn't changed that factor.

Cas stumbles into yesterday's jeans and heads to the door with purpose, preparing an excuse on his way, and an apology is perched on his lips when he swings the door open.

It is not Bill, or Nora either.

Dean stares at him with wide, earnest eyes, smiling a bit self-consciously when Cas' eyes widen.

"Dean?"

"Heya, Cas." Dean digs his hands into his pockets and rocks a little in place, almost bashfully.

Cas could've said a multitude of things, but for whatever the reason the first is, "You're not who I was expecting."

Dean frowns briefly. "Um…okay. You got a string of secret lovers or something?"

"Yes," Cas deadpans, and Dean laughs as if he isn't sure whether Cas is joking.

"Why are you here, Dean?" Cas asks, not quite rudely, but something in his voice makes Dean's face fall faster than a rock hurled off a cliff before he reassembles his expression into a light, easy smile.

"I came to check out the new digs." He shifts restlessly, as if sensing the unspoken barrier between them. "Can I, uh, come in?"

Cas wordlessly steps aside and Dean ducks in and peers around critically, wrinkling his nose at the musty smell.

"You came all this way…" Cas says slowly as Dean begins to poke around the main room, including a distrusting frown toward the couch. "Just to check up on me?"

"Yeah," Dean says in an overly bright voice. "I was in the neighborhood, you know. Sam's back at the motel working on the angel thing, so I figured I'd drop by."

"How did you--"

"Stopped by Nora's house and asked for your address."

"Dean," Cas says, suddenly hating the constant evasiveness of their conversations, the repeated dancing around the things that had to be said. "Why are you really here?"

Dean doesn't say anything for several moments; the forced smile drops from his face as he hovers uncertainly above the couch, tapping his fingers nervously on its spine. He stares openly at Cas, heavy, searching, and Cas stares back. The loss of words is desperate, somehow, like the silence between them is gasping for breath.

"I just wanted to see how you're getting on, that's all," Dean says eventually.

"You drove all the way out here just to see how I was getting on?"

Dean frowns. "I told you Sammy and I are in the neighborhood."

"That's a lie. Sam isn't with you."

"The hell are you talking about?"

"Dean, I've known you for years," Cas says testily, "and I've actually held your soul in my hands. You think I can't tell when you're lying to me?"

"Come on, we said we weren't gonna bring up the soul thing."

" _Dean._ "

"Alright!" Dean snaps, holding up his hands in a surrendering kind of way. "Sam's back home with Kevin working at the angel thing. He thinks I'm taking care of a vamp case down south, alright?"

"Why would you lie to him?"

"Jesus, Cas, what's with the Spanish Inquisition? Is it really that hard to believe I just want to see you?"

 _Yes,_ Cas thinks, the strand of unanswered text messages suddenly flashing in his head.

"Now c'mon," Dean says, his voice that horrible false brightness again. It's the kind of brightness used only to mask grave sadness. "Give me a tour of the place."

Cas sighs, reluctant, but takes Dean around the apartment, showing him everything but his bedroom. That seems inappropriate, somehow, although he isn't quite sure why. Dean whistles approvingly when he sees the toolbox on the counter in the small kitchen, but his eyes stop on the half-empty bottle of wine. He frowns, clearly displeased, and quickly masks it before he says, jokingly, "Have yourself a little party there, Cas?"

"Yes," Cas answers. "Some friends from work threw a house-warming party for me."

Dean nods, drifts forward, and touches the note tied to the neck of the bottle. Cas had forgotten about it; Bill had scrawled out,  _Steve, Welcome to the domestic life. Congrats --Bill,_ when he'd given Cas the gift.

"Who's Bill?" Dean asks.

"Friend of mine."

Dean stares at him again, long and hard, and when Cas avoids his gaze he whistles low under his breath. "Friend, huh? Wow. Didn't know you dug guys, Cas."

"It's not just guys," Cas retorts, bristling, "and it's not just girls. I don't discriminate based on genitalia, unlike you humans seem so intent on doing."

Dean looks visibly affected by this; wide-eyed and ashen, he swallows several times, bobs his head once, looks back at the bottle and doesn't say anything for several moments. Finally, in a forced breath, he says, "Alright, show me the rest of the place."

"Nothing else to show, really." Cas leads Dean back into the main-room, toward the window overlooking the parking lot. "I don't really know where to begin. I was thinking I could put up curtains, black ones maybe, on all the windows--"

Cas suddenly finds himself spun around by rough hands, and before he can choke out a protest, his vision is filled with green eyes and stubble and Dean is kissing him, desperate and teething and  _rough_. Cas gasps into it and jerks back in surprise, but Dean's hands wire him in place, settle themselves like warm anchors on the back of his neck, and Cas breathes him in wildly through his nose--he smells like the Impala and cigarettes and leather, a lot like Bill had, but different,  _sweeter_ somehow, and Cas' heart is sprinting, much like last night, but there's a ballooning, bubbly feeling in his chest, spreading out to his limbs, making him giddy and lightheaded. Dean walks them backwards until Cas is backed up against the wall, and he's murmuring  _Cas_ into his skin, breathes it warmly against his mouth,  _Cas,_ and Cas is lost, dizzy, and he feels strangely like something that was missing within him has been allotted into place. He makes a whimpering noise and Dean reels him in like he's trying to swallow him whole, securing both hands to the sides of Cas' face.

Their hands roam up backs, across hips and collarbones, curious and exploratory, and Cas traces the things they don't know how to word into the planes of Dean's shoulders, things like  _I missed you_ and  _I know_ and  _please stay_ and  _you're killing me, always._

"Cas," Dean eventually says, his voice gravel-soft through kisses. "Come back with me. Come home."

"I'd--I'd have to quit my job," Cas says through gasps, distracted by what Dean's hands are doing on his hips.

"Yeah."

"Sell my apartment."

"Yeah."

"Leave my friends."

"Yeah."

"Dean."

"What?"

"I can't."

Dean pulls back at that, his lips slick and his eyes wide and glazed. "Wh--why can't you?"

"I…I have a life here now, a life I've worked hard to create. I can't just uproot everything I've worked for and go back to Kansas with you."

Dean frowns; his chest pulses with his fast breath. "Why not?"

Cas stares at him in dawning disbelief.

"Cas," Dean says, earnestly now, as if entreating him to see some great truth. "None of this is real, not really; I mean, it's all temporary, yeah?"

Cas continues to stare at him, and Dean quickly adds, "I mean, you think you're gonna work a 9-to-5 job in a gas station the rest of your life? You think that's it for you?"

"I thought you wanted me to get out, to be happy." Anger, treacherous and thorny, takes root in his chest and builds. "And it's real to me. It was real those nights I was homeless, and  _scared,_ and starving and  _alone._ It was real the entire time I worked just to afford this apartment, it was all very  _real_ when you threw me out to the wolves. It was real when I didn't have anyone, when I texted you all those nights and you never bothered replying, but none of that is  _real_ now _?_ You came here expecting I'd throw everything away just because you asked?" Cas takes a deep, jagged breath, watching as the words fall like blows on Dean. "I mean, what did you expect, Dean?"

Dean has his eyes lowered, darting and panicky; drawing himself in, retreating from Cas by degrees.

"What do you want from me?" And the words are out in the open now, festering like open wounds, and for a few horrible moments, neither of them say anything.

"Nothing, I guess." A chill goes down Cas' spine at the lifelessness in Dean's voice, all the more colder by the contrast to the heavy, rasping warmth of Dean's breath only moments ago, the teasing hot pushes of his fingers against Cas' ribs, threaded in his hair. "I guess I'll go."

Dean spins on his heel, head still ducked, and goes for the door, his shoulders familiarly stiff, soldier-like. Cas' feet are planted to the ground, his pulse still thundering in his ears, and it's not until he hears the pounding retreat of Dean's footsteps in the stairwell that he exhales the breath he's been unconsciously holding. He stands there for a moment with his heart beating hard and fast, listens to Dean open the trunk and close it, the thin crunch of his shoes against the gravel, telltale signs of departure, and something desperate and wild seizes him and he finds himself out the door, down the stairs, storming after Dean to his car until he has his hands fisted in his jacket. Dean spins under his touch in surprise and gives a protesting grunt when Cas pushes him back into the side of the car.

"Cas, what the  _hell--_ "

"You, Dean Winchester," Cas huffs, watching his breath fog in the cold air, "drive me fucking crazy."

"It's part of my charm," Dean snaps, still visibly upset, and Cas rolls his eyes and leans quickly forward to capture Dean's mouth with conviction, with aggression, with intent and after a shocked moment, Dean responds, winding his arms under Cas' thin shirt to pull him in until their bodies are aligned like jigsaw pieces. Cas shivers with the cold, feels the goosebumps rippling up and down his arms, but he doesn't care, not really, not when it feels like his chest is on fire, like a small sun is centered there, tugging them both into its gravity. Dean pulls back, gasping, after another few moments and a nervous glance up and down the street.

"So, uh, is…is this saying you'll come home with me?" he asks after a moment, sounding dazed.

Cas presses his lips together, fighting a reluctant smile. "No," he says. "This is me asking you to stay the night."

"Oh." Dean straightens quickly, and they take their hands off each other with sudden formality. "Um. I guess, I. Yeah, my stuff's in the car, I was just gonna sleep in the backseat, but I could just, you know. Stay on the couch. That'd be, that'd be fine."

"I do own a bed, you know."

Dean raises his eyebrows. "Is that…are you fucking propositioning me, Cas?"

"Or not a bed," Cas continues, ignoring Dean's words, "but rather a large mattress. It can easily fit two." Cas thinks suddenly, strangely, of what it would feel like to have Dean's bare feet pressed against his under the sheets, and his human heart gives a strange lurch at the prospect of finding out.

"Stay the night," Dean echoes. "Yeah, I, I can do that."

Cas looks at his bare feet, toes curled into the ice-cold concrete, suddenly unsure what to say, his mouth tingling.

"What about your friend Bill? Won't he be….bothered by me, um, hanging around?" Dean doesn't sound possessive or threatened, merely curious, possibly hurt.

"I'm not seeing Bill," Cas confesses. "Not really. He kissed me, but…"

"But…?" Dean prompts, after Cas trails off into silence.

Cas shrugs. "He wasn't you." And Dean's breath looks punched out of him and he mouths a soft " _oh_ " but doesn't say anything, nothing at all.

"You wanna go inside?" Cas asks, to fill the sudden silence.

"Yeah, I'm freezing my nuts off," Dean answers quickly, as if for some sort of levity, and Cas replies just as smoothly, "Well, that would be counterproductive," which earns him a shocked laugh.

"Jesus, Cas," Dean chuckles as they move toward the apartment, their sides brushing. "What have I done to you?"

 _All the best things,_ Cas thinks, but he just smiles and says nothing at all.


End file.
